


Uncovering

by Sineala



Category: due South
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Community: trope_bingo, Gen, M/M, Post-Call of the Wild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-29
Updated: 2013-09-29
Packaged: 2017-12-27 22:43:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/984480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sineala/pseuds/Sineala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A quest for a new world, or at least the remains of the old.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Uncovering

**Author's Note:**

> This is really not the first dS story I intended to finish.

They didn't know anything was wrong until the dogs started barking. There shouldn't have been anything to set them off, but, well, dogs. Sometimes they did that.

Dief whined in canine sympathy and dropped his head down on his legs, where he lay stretched out like he was trying to be the next sphinx, and Ray frowned and squinted out the window. If he had been thinking about it, which he wasn't, he might have called it half-assed surveillance. He didn't even push the drapes back, just stared through them, through the thick-glazed window, and-- the hell?

"Hey," he said, and Fraser looked up from the stove. Ray waved a hand at the window. "That normal?"

The light through the drapes was dim and faded, a cool orange. Like the setting sun.

The window did not face west.

Fraser blinked a few times and his face went very still. "No. It isn't."

And then suddenly Fraser was flinging the door open, and stepping out into the cold--

It wasn't cold. Water pooled in his slushy footsteps, Ray saw. It was warming up. Rapidly. The snow was melting, all over. Why was the snow melting?

Ray looked up. The sky was on fire.

That was what it looked like at first, but as he stared in horror, the situation resolved into something more concrete. More awful. It was the ground, not the sky. As far as he could see, all along the horizon, there was a great wall of flame, in the distance, with pluming, rising smoke. The worst performance arsonist he could ever have imagined, times a million.

And then the fire went out.

_What was that?_ he wanted to ask, but Fraser didn't know, any more than he did.

They stood together. There was nothing that could be said.

"Can you ready the dogs?" Fraser's voice was tight. "I'll get the guns-- the food-- I'll pack-- can you?"

"Yeah, yeah," Ray said, hurriedly. "You think they can run, with the sled, if it gets any warmer?"

They could talk about it later. They could be scared out of their fucking minds later. But for now, they could act. They had to.

"There's nothing else we can do," Fraser said. "We'll take them as far south as we can."

"Until we find someone."

Fraser nodded. "Yes. Until then," he said, and he shook like he wanted to cry, and made a tiny noise in the back of his throat. "I'm sorry, Ray."

They had to hold together. Fraser had to hold together. Ray couldn't do this without him.

Ray held out his hand -- the reaching-out hand, they'd joked, so many times -- and Fraser took it, and then abruptly turned and buried his face in Ray's neck, kissing him with his windburned mouth. He was alive. They were alive. It was enough.

"Hey," Ray whispered. "We can do this. We can. We can't be the only ones left, right? A new quest. We'll find someone. We will."

There had to be someone who knew what had happened. Civilization. Somewhere.

"We will," Fraser echoed, and they stood there staring at the flames.


End file.
